Indian Space Agency Prototypes Its First Crew Capsule

First time accepted submitter sixsigma1978 writes "India is about to take one small step towards human space flight. Last week the country's space agency unveiled a prototype of its first crew capsule, a 4-meter-high module designed to carry two people into low Earth orbit. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is planning a test flight for later this year – even though it still awaits government approval and funding for a human space-flight program. The unpiloted capsule will fly on the maiden launch of a new type of rocket that would otherwise have carried a dummy payload."

Comments

Something new?

[ColdWetDog]

At least it doesn't look like a modified Soyuz like the Chinese effort. I'm not sure India has the drive or need to put humans in space, but they appear to be trying something different.

Re:Something new?

[ColdWetDog]

Stranger than I first thought. TFA talks about a 'carbon nose cap' to shield the heat of reentry. That sort of implies (subject to the translation failures of generalist journalists and PR folks) that it's going nose down through the atmosphere. However, it looks like the capsule has a posterior heat shield (like other manned capsules) albeit one that looks pretty thin in the picture.

Sigh. Be nice if they actually had real pictures of these things.

Re:Something new?

[icebike]

Would have been nice if a post mentioning an Unveiling would at least link to the picture.

http://www.newscientist.com/da...

What they got is bones.

Re:Something new?

[AHuxley]

Indian Space Research Organisation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
India seems to be doing space exploration the right way. Less http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O... and the building on other countries efforts.
India seems to have taken its time and allowed science to catch up with its own needs rather than buying into the future and then running out of cash, political support or skill sets.
Long term expect many interesting new ideas with proven tech.

Re:Something new?

[Taco Cowboy]

Long term expect many interesting new ideas with proven tech

The term "Proven Tech" implies that the technology has been proven by others first, or in other words, "borrowed technology", just like China is doing.

But anyway, all power to the Indian space missions !!

Re:Something new?

[Michalson]

To be fair, while the Chinese capsule is probably a 'copy' given the engrained culture of copying things and passing them off as original (jets, tanks, bullet trains, cartoons, statues, retail stores, etc and etc), the Soyuz shape is actually a very mathmatically 'perfect' spacecraft given a certain set of requirements. In fact the shape is so dependent on math that America almost built a nearly identical craft for the Apollo program without either country knowing what the other was doing.

When designing spacecraft weight is everything - to move something in space you need a proportional amount of fuel, and then you need even more fuel to move that fuel. Tsiolkovsky's equation shows how adding even a small amount of weight to the final stage of a rocket greatly increases the weight of the lower stages. Soviet engineers zero'ed in on one specific element and that was in order to return something to Earth you needed a heatshield, a parachute and other equipment. As a rule of thumb they figured out that for every pound of spacecraft you wanted to bring back to Earth you would add about 2 more pounds to the spacecraft's weight.

Given how much weight was dependent on the size of the return capsule they decided to design it first and make it as small as possible, then build the rest of the ship around whatever they had come up with. The lightest possible return capsule would be a sphere: maximum volume (so you can fit 3 guys) with the minimum mass. But a sphere wouldn't work since it wouldn't remain steady and the G forces would kill everyone. Applying some math from the field of aerodynamics created the 'headlight' shape, providing lift while adding the minimum possible mass. The headlight return capsule is the part that is going to be identical no matter who designs it - the Soviet Union, the American contracters or the Chinese. As long as the design principle of a minimum mass return capsule is used it will look more or less the same from the outside.

The rest of the ship has more room for originality but is still going to be affected by math and common sense. A service module where the engine and fuel go will exist and it will obviously fit at the bottom/base of the spacecraft. To aid in launch aerodynamics it makes sense for this service module to be a cylinder with a rocket on the bottom and sized to fit with the spacecraft's largest surface at the top. Apollo's service module followed the same logic. Finally you need a crew cabin (the orbital module), since the whole point of a longer duration spacecraft is that your guys can get out of their seat. Since the orbital module isn't needed for deorbiting it makes sense for the reentry module to be connected to the service module, and so the orbital module by default gets put on top of the whole stack. Since it has a smaller attachment point anyway (the small end of the reentry module whose shape is already fixed) it might make sense to make the orbital module roughly spherical, since this again maximizes volume : mass and both the Soviet and Chinese versions did that.

General Electric, one of the bidders for the Apollo program, performed a study that came up with a nearly identical craft despite the Soyuz blueprints that existed at the time being a closely guarded Soviet secret. The main difference was their version of the orbital module. Rather then focusing on the volume : mass ratio (sphere) they focused on a shape that would work best for the fairings (Soyuz requires a large fairing to protect it during launch, much like most satellites do). This resulted in a cone shaped orbital module, essentially a lighter more minimal version of the Apollo command module. Of course the GE design was never used because NASA had decided what Apollo would look like long before a million (1960s) taxpayer dollars where spent on the design studies. The NASA design focused on a different key requirement - the module should have the same diameter as the Saturn C-2's upper stage. Because of that requirement the size of the heatshield became a fixed property. With a heatshield that big there was no reason to not bring back the whole spacecraft, minus the service module, and so you got the Apollo design that went to the Moon.

Re:Something new?

[AHuxley]

More that India understands the tech at its own pace, can build it in its own labs using its own staff and can then build new tech to spec for ongoing use.
India seems to have focused on theory, academics, then super computing, new materials, testing, military and science needs later.
vs one off 'race' bespoke efforts (WW2 Germany, US, Soviet Union), one off 'early' bespoke buy in/support efforts (Australia, UK for sat support) i.e. nation building politically selected sheltered tech workshops.
The costing of the UK's Skynet (satellite) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... seems to be warning from history of been too early with no national support (epic buy in of unique tech from the US).

Re:Something new?

[arvin]

It looks like it will reenter nose-first. ISRO did a capsule re-entry and recovery test a few years ago with that configuration, the SRE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Apollo-like base-first reentry causes less heating, but it's aerodynamically stable only if the capsule has a short, wide cone and low center of gravity; Nose-first reentry is more forgiving and stable with narrow, tall cones. To have sufficient space in an Apollo-like capsule, the base has to be wide, which requires a launch vehicle that can accomodate that width; ISRO's rockets are too narrow.

Source: I was an intern at ISRO during SRE preparations and I spoke with aerodynamics people on that project.

Re:Something new?

[dbIII]

If you want to slow down you want the blunt end to push through the air. On the other hand if the thing tumbles you wouldn't want it to burn up just because it's pointing the wrong way so a bit of a heat shield on the nose makes sense.

Re:Something new?

[CrimsonAvenger]

seems to be warning from history of been too early

BEING too early?

I hope, at least. If not, then I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what you were trying to say....

Re:Priorities

[ColdWetDog]

Where are India's priorities? Most of their people don't having running water, electricity and shit in the open. A space agency is a luxury for rich nations, not for poor, backward countries like this.

And these 'rich' countries would be? The US? Russia? China? Get over it. India is probably spending less than .001% of it's GDP on space flight. India's big problem bis corruption. A high tech endevour like space flight is an excellent vehicle for this. Yes, you can bribe your way into making a heat shield, but when it melts in the first 10 minutes of re entry, people are going to notice it and get pissed off. You don't have to wait 30 years for the next earthquake to discover that your contractor can't build anything.

Too easy.

[rmdingler]

Really?

...otherwise would've carried a dummy payload?

Where are you, harvesters of the low hanging fruit?

Re:Too easy.

[The Grim Reefer]

Really?

...otherwise would've carried a dummy payload?

Where are you, harvesters of the low hanging fruit?

I heard that it will be carrying the Kardashians as a way to raise awareness about the program. Oh, wait...

That's Cool...

[Greyfox]

But why is the Kerbal Space Program theme playing in their mission control?

slow, but steady

[Anonymous Coward]

India has been slowly, but surely, plodding away with its space program since the 1970s. India launched its first successful commercial grade rocket, the PSLV, around 1993. The PSLV is still India's primary rocket. India has been trying to develop a working cryogenic stage since then. They had a successful launch ~2 months ago, so I have been expecting India to resume work on its manned space program. ISRO's budget has grown to around ~$900 million USD.

Re:Priorities

[WillAffleckUW]

Good argument. In point of fact, India has their population consuming less energy per capita than China does, but with the same growth in population and almost the same GDP per capita.

Now if they could just find a way to make Space Travel inexpensive, maybe we could colonize Mars, which we now know has water on it's moons and on the planet.

Re:Who left the door open ?

[The Grim Reefer]

"the prototype capsule cannot be hermetically sealed" And yet my fridge can.

In the vacuum of space? Is it the same model that was used in the last Indiana Jones movie?

Re:Priorities

[Hal_Porter]

Best argument I've heard is that back in the 17th Century India was one of the richest civilisations in the world. Then it was colonised by the Muslims and then the British.

Muslim colonisation was absolutely genocidal - the name Hindu Kush means "slaughterer of the Hindus" and refers to the high death rate of Hindu slaves moved over them.

The British one was no picnic either - famines were common under British rule and stopped when it ended. India's share of world income collapsed from 22.6% in 1700, almost equal to Europe's share of 23.3% at that time, to as low as 3.8% in 1952.

So why does India need a space program? Defence basically. Most of the technologies to launch things into space are useful to launch warheads on a short suborbital flight to fry and enemy city.

And if India wants to avoid a rerun of the last two hundred years it needs to be prepared to fry enemy cities. The world is not a very nice place and only well armed and ruthless civilisations survive.

Re:Priorities

[spasm]

Most Americans (58.5%) will spend at least one year below the poverty line at some point between ages 25 and 75. (Hacker, J. S. (2006). The great risk shift: The new insecurity and the decline of the American dream. New York: Oxford University Press (USA).)

Re:Priorities; on a side note.

[Anonymous Coward]

interesting that you picked up on those stats.
India vs. China is exactly the reason why I say that CO2 emissions need to be based on Co2 / GDP ($), instead of CO2/Capita.
Basically, India/china proved that doing emissions based on ppl is the worst solution.

Windbourne.

Re:Priorities

[Applehu Akbar]

But India is also a rapidly industrializing nation. Industrialization means infrastructure and jobs, which is what is building the water and sewer systems they need. Space programs are a natural result of the disposable income that goes with industrial development.

Re:Awesome... so long as they don't need Tech Supp

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

Drug R&D is also massively outsourced to China. One of my clients was Bristol Meyers Squibb, almost all the "engineering" and "research" calls I got came in from China.

Pack lots of pachouli . . .

[mmell]

Can't use incense to mask odors up there, you know.

Re:Priorities

[mmell]

Y'know, the US and the USSR both had similar problems back in the fifties and sixties - not as severe, but definitely the same - but Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin both made it into orbit. Apollo circled the moon and later landed there. We still have people living in poverty and so does the current Russia - but I don't think too many citizens of either nation regret exploring space.

Re:Here is a photo of the crew preparing to board.

[andrewa]

You're right, I should have done my research. How can I expect my post to be taken seriously with such glaring inaccuracies?

And inspite of it all

[invictusvoyd]

Yeah the manned space thing seems a little too expensive and decades away (at best) . But these fellas (ISRO) have recently and quite successfully launched a geo stationary satellite . I wonder how many countries have that capability . 5 ?